OSU Looking To Expand Ag
Program In Wayne County

Published: October 7, 1999 12:00AM

Thio State University is looking to invest millions of dollars and take title to some 1,800 acres of Wayne County farmland to consolidate livestock program operations here within the College of Food, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

The move would likely relocate Ohio State's Columbus-area dairy and swine program facilities to Wayne County, according to Skip Nault, interim director of the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center.

It might also involve the relocation of OARDC's Western Branch swine program operations from Clark County, he said this morning.

Don Scott Field, Ohio State's Columbus-area swine facility site and the former home of the Farm Science Review, is sure to be terminated as a farming operation, Nault said, with Wayne County the almost certain home of a consolidated swine facility.

Wayne County Comissioner Cheryl Noah confirmed that there have been ongoing discussions between the commissioners' office and Ohio State.

"It's been in the works ... for some time," she said. "We're just pretty excited."

Commissioner Fred Cannon, who sits on the task force appointed by Ohio State Vice President Bobby Moser to assess the costs and benefits of the consolidation, said that the two stumbling blocks to consolidation he sees are the cost of the additional cropland needed to give livestock programs self-sufficiency in raising their own feed and the cost of moving facilities from Columbus to Wayne County.

"It's just in the draft stages," he said of the consolidation plan.

Nothing has been finalized and no price tag has yet been put on the planned consolidation, Moser said this morning, but he noted that "the natural thing for us to do is look at the Wooster area."

"It's kind of an exciting project when you look at the potential," Moser said, noting that consolidated physical facilities in Wayne County would be capable of serving OARDC, Ohio State's Agricultural Technical Institute and "facilities down here (in Columbus)."

Noah said that the county has about 200 acres of land available in East Union Township, near Apple Creek Developmental Center, and another 200 at the Wayne County Care Center property in Wooster Township, if leasing that land would be of interest to the university.

"If Ohio State had their way," Noah said, she is sure that the university would seek to add land holdings in the same area where the bulk of its existing OARDC and ATI operations are now.

But Nault said that the land being looked at is already being farmed by ATI.

OARDC and ATI currently farm some 3,800 acres of land in East Union, Franklin and Wooster townships.

Some 2,000 acres on the OARDC campus is already owned by OARDC, but the 1,800 acres being farmed by ATI includes some 1,300 acres owned by Apple Creek Developmental Center and leased to ATI for 40 years.

Another 400 acres owned by the state Department of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities is being farmed by ATI on "a gentlemen's agreement," he said.

"We have to have more stability," Nault said, noting that there is a lot of work involved in transferring title of state-owned land from one agency to another.

In addition, he noted this morning, "We're talking about 300 to 400 head of dairy cattle," in the combined dairy operation from ATI's relatively new facility on Barnard Road, OARDC's aging Krauss Dairy on Oil City Road and the old, small Waterman Farm dairy operation on a land-locked 300-acre parcel across from the new Schottenstein Center on Ohio 315 in Columbus.

OARDC was founded in 1882 in Columbus and moved to Wayne County in 1892. It has a professional staff of more than 250 scientists conducting research in 15 departments with the help of 600 technicians and other civil service employees.

ATI opened its doors in 1972 and had a record high enrollment of 965 students last year, with another record expected this fall, plus more than 2,000 people served annually through its Office of Continuing Education.

There are 10 other OARDC branch operations statewide, ranging from vegetable crops and muck crops to grape research, resource development and forest research.